931 St. Peter's, New Orleans

We rented a house in the French Quarter in New Orleans for New Year's 2008. The location could not have been better, on St. Peter's street about three blocks down from our favorite hang out Pat O'Brian's. The house is a classic Creole style cottage with two bedrooms and two bathrooms. It had high ceilings and classic shutters in front -- in New Orleans, shutters are not ornamental, they help protect against the weather and offer a little sound proofing which may be the more important function during heavy tourist influxes. The dormers on the second floor of the house are two very small apartments -- basically studios -- that can be rented separately. There is also a great patio, that we used to host a couple of get togethers with the family. The patio is backed by another small apartment that has a kitchen and sitting room downstairs and a nice large bedroom upstairs.

Inside the house was very comfortable for four people. The sitting room was big but the TV was a little undersized for important viewing, i.e., the Holiday Bowl. The dining room was very elegant, but we ended up using it as a computer station. The kitchen was small, but we didn't do any cooking so it was fine.

The one disappointment was that the house was not clean when we arrived; the cleaning lady had gotten the dates mixed up. However, she did come early the next day and everything turned out OK.

If you are going to stay in the French Quarter you should know that there are a few drawbacks. It can be very loud if you are too close to Bourbon Street, and it is not unlikely that you will find strangers -- possibly drunk strangers -- sitting on your stoop discussing life's issues at 4:00 a.m. In the summer the Quarter is very hot and the smell can be a little overwhelming. There is so much garbage left in the streets that they have trash pick up every day. This also leads to a small rat and roach problem.

All that said, it is a really fun place. There are dozens of great restaurants, bars, galleries, street performers and other interesting sights all within walking distance.